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Habitat for Humanity San Francisco Breaks New Business Ground With Salesforce.com

San Francisco Chapter uses online CRM service to target and rally resources to quickly obtain sites in scarce housing market

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. - February 24, 2003 - Salesforce.com®, the market leader in online customer relationship management (CRM), today announced that Habitat for Humanity San Francisco (HHSF) is using salesforce.com to manage business development activities in the city. With salesforce.com's free and easy to use online CRM service, the nonprofit organization is now able to utilize its 25-member volunteer site selection committee to the fullest capacity and save thousands of dollars annually on its business development management. Since deploying salesforce.com three months ago, HHSF has seen significant benefits, including greater clarity of its business development plan, more effective use of staff and committee time and the opportunity for more streamlined communications. "Salesforce.com has really gotten our site selection committee out of the circular, inefficient habits that we were in previously," said Bre Martinez, HHSF's Director of Finance and Project Development. "Now instead of always going back to the beginning of the process, we can move forward in a definitive straight line."

With salesforce.com, HHSF organizational forums can concentrate on strategic planning, with particular focus on public and private entity partners and contacts such as developers, city departments, and real estate agents to secure land that is below market. Salesforce.com's smooth and customizable development management system is key to finding available public or private land in a scarce housing market like the Bay Area. Volunteers can access information from anywhere and at anytime to more easily balance their commitment to HHSF with their professional and personal lives.

"Nonprofits organizations are successfully using salesforce.com's Web-based CRM solution for a wide range of needs," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. "HHSF makes use of the key benefits of our application - it avoids the extreme costs of software and the maintenance software requires, thus enabling more of its funding to go directly towards programs. Equally valuable and essential to the nonprofit sector, HHSF needs to manage volunteers effectively and ensure that the work they offer the organization is always worthwhile."

Habitat for Humanity San Francisco recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for its 1009 Mission Street Homes (at 6th Street) in the city's South of Market Area - with eight condominiums, this is its largest project to date. This five-story building will also be the tallest new building that Habitat for Humanity has constructed anywhere in the world. Salesforce.com offers free use of its application worldwide for up to 10 users to qualified nonprofit organizations, totaling up to 1% of total licenses. Nonprofits must be registered in the U.S. with the IRS as a 501c3 charity, or outside of the U.S. as an NGO, and have a charitable purpose to meet minimum eligibility requirements. The program is aligned with the salesforce.com/foundation's goals of creating a new model to integrate business and the community to create social change in part by donating 1% of its profits to the community. Nonprofits interested in finding out more information about this program and costs for services not covered in this program should log onto www.salesforce.com and follow the steps for nonprofits within the 30-Day Trial or should call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

About Habitat for Humanity San Francisco

>HHSF seeks to bring people together to provide affordable ownership housing for low-income families and individuals in San Francisco. HHSF volunteers work alongside partnering families to build and renovate homes, which are sold to families living in inadequate housing. The homes are sold at no profit with affordable, no-interest mortgages, which will not exceed 33% of the family's annual gross income. HHSF uses these mortgage payments to build more houses. The only down payment for each family is a commitment of 200-500 hours of "sweat equity" depending on family size, including work on their own home.

About Habitat for Humanity San Francisco

>HHSF seeks to bring people together to provide affordable ownership housing for low-income families and individuals in San Francisco. HHSF volunteers work alongside partnering families to build and renovate homes, which are sold to families living in inadequate housing. The homes are sold at no profit with affordable, no-interest mortgages, which will not exceed 33% of the family's annual gross income. HHSF uses these mortgage payments to build more houses. The only down payment for each family is a commitment of 200-500 hours of "sweat equity" depending on family size, including work on their own home.